European training to advance environmental monitoring An EU initiative has helped to produce much-needed expertise in the field of environmental monitoring. Digital Economy Climate Change and Environment © arcoss, Thinkstock Current commercial sensors do not offer specific information about pollutants, but provide general environmental parameters of their surroundings. Accordingly, innovative and multidisciplinary methods are required for efficient information exchange across the various sectors of environmental monitoring. The EU-funded project SENSEIVER (Low-cost and energy-efficient LTCC sensor/IR-UWB transceiver solutions for sustainable healthy environment) presented a joint effort to reinforce the relevant technical bases with requisite training on new sensors, materials, transceivers and data acquisition systems. Nineteen early-stage and six experienced researchers from partnering institutions worked on developing environmental monitoring system components that will help provide a sustainable healthy environment. Researchers developed innovative sensors with low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) processing, materials sensitive to environmental pollutants, energy-efficient ultra-wideband (UWB) transceivers compatible with LTCC sensors, and intelligent systems to obtain and display data relevant to soil and water quality. LTCC technology enables the integration of different components in the same package. Based on this ceramic technology, researchers developed new sensors, including a capacitive sensor for detection of organic solvent/water mixtures and the read-out circuit, a sensor for measurements of water temperature and a microfluidic sensor for mixture analysis. They also fabricated low-cost resistive sensors on organic substrates for detection of volatile organic compounds. Perovskite compounds were used as pollutant-sensitive materials for the electrode during the development of wireless gas sensor prototypes. Researchers also designed a power-efficient wireless impulse-radio UWB solution for transceivers that is compatible with the designed LTCC sensors. Project partners organised a number of network management board meetings, workshops and a summer school. SENSEIVER has empowered researchers to develop novel sensors for environmental monitoring. Keywords Environmental monitoring, sensors, pollutants, SENSEIVER, low-temperature co-fired ceramics
